Microsoft. Windows 7 has a built-in maintenance task that automatically deletes broken links from your desktop.

Can you believe it?

I thought I was hallucinating, when last month some desktop shortcuts  just disappeared. I had lots of work, so had to crack on and left the ‘investigation’, until I had more time. Before that time came, however, some more shortcuts just vanished…leaving me completly…..gobsmacked.

Further investigation revealed that Windows 7 was performing this little gem for me – automatically and without warning, under the guise of “System Maintenance”.

So without further ado, off to Microsoft I went, to find the solution:

Method 1

// Keep the number of broken shortcuts on your desktop to four or less.You have to be kidding?

Method 2

// If you must have more than four broken shortcuts on your desktop, you can disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter.

Note If you disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter, all the maintenance tasks that it performs are disabled. Therefore, we recommend that you use Method 1. Yes, but what are these tasks?

To disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. Under System and Security, click Find and fix problems. Oh no you don’t – it does not exist.
3. On the left navigation pane, click Change settings.
4. Set Computer Maintenance to Off.

Yep. That’s right – Microsoft’s own help is completely incorrect – there is no ‘System and Security’ option in Windows 7 Control Panel.

The real fix is to go to Control Panel>All Control Panel Items>Troubleshooting>Change settings and then switch off Computer Maintenance.

However, Computer Maintenance does check for ‘hard disk errors’ – exactly how or what is not clear, so you might want to leave this switched ‘on’.

Me? I have will be switching it off, as I use other methods for disk checking and maintenance.

Just makes you wonder sometimes, what Microsoft designers are thinking about? Not only is ‘shortcut deletion’ highly undesirable – but you can’t just switch it off – you have to switch off the whole system maintenance widget….which then turns off something really useful, like disk health checks.

Bizzare.